A bus company owes its passengers more than ordinary care, and you get less time to make them answer for it. Both halves of that are true at once, and together they are why a bus injury goes wrong more often than it should.
The duty first. Under Civil Code 2100, a carrier of persons for reward “must use the utmost care and diligence for their safe carriage”. Not reasonable care. The utmost. Civil Code 2101 goes further on the vehicle itself: a carrier must provide vehicles safe and fit for their purpose, and “is not excused for default in this respect by any degree of care”. On the condition of the bus, how careful they were is not a defense.
Now the clock. If that bus belonged to a public agency, and in Los Angeles it usually does, you must present a written claim within six months rather than the ordinary two years.
Culver Legal has recovered $200 Million and counting for injured people in California. Contingency, costs advanced, no fee unless we win. Call (310) 600-7881 at any hour.
Work Out Who Ran the Bus, Because It Sets Your Deadline
This is the first question, and it is not always answerable from the paintwork.
Metro. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority exists by statute, created by Public Utilities Code 130050.2. A public agency, so a government claim on six months.
LADOT services, including DASH and Commuter Express, which are City of Los Angeles services. Also a public entity.
A municipal operator from a neighboring city, which is its own public entity with its own deadline. Several run routes that cross into Los Angeles.
A school bus, where the operator may be a school district, itself a public entity, or a private contractor engaged by one.
A private coach, charter, shuttle or tour bus, which is not a public entity at all. Two years, and the common carrier duty still applies.
Get this wrong and you can lose a good claim to a deadline that never applied to it, or miss one that did.
Bus Injuries We See in Los Angeles
Injuries to standing passengers, which is most of them. Buses are designed to carry people standing, with nothing to restrain them and one hand on a rail, so a hard stop throws somebody the full length of the aisle.
Injuries getting on and off, at the door, on the step, or in the gap, which are frequently blamed on the passenger and frequently are not their fault.
Head injuries, from stanchions, window frames and the floor. If somebody has not been themselves since, that is a brain injury question.
Injuries to people outside the bus. A bus has blind spots that a car does not and a turning radius that puts the rear of the vehicle somewhere the driver is not looking, which is why so many bus cases are actually pedestrian cases, or cyclist cases, or ordinary collisions with a car where the other vehicle happens to weigh twenty tons.
A fall on board is a premises problem with a higher duty attached. The two reported California decisions against one transit district were both falls, and a carrier owes utmost care rather than the ordinary care a property owner owes. Where a crash kills someone the claim becomes a wrongful death claim, and against a public operator the six-month rule applies to that claim too. Anyone hurt on an employer’s shuttle also has a work injury claim running alongside.
Fatal injuries, where the claim becomes a wrongful death claim.
Passenger or Not: It Changes the Standard
Worth being precise about, because it is the part most pages blur.
If you were being carried, the utmost care standard in Civil Code 2100 applies, and Civil Code 2101 applies to the fitness of the vehicle.
If you were hit by a bus while walking, cycling or driving, you were not a passenger. Your claim runs on ordinary negligence under Civil Code 1714, where everyone is responsible for injury caused by their want of ordinary care.
Both are real claims. They are argued differently, and anyone telling you the higher standard applies to everybody has not read the section.
Do you know which agency ran the bus?
That one fact decides whether you have six months or two years. We can establish it from the route and the time.
How Culver Legal Values a Los Angeles Bus Accident Claim
- Medical costs already incurred, from the scene through imaging, surgery and therapy
- Future care, where treatment is still ahead
- Lost income, and lost earning capacity where the injury ends a kind of work
- Pain and suffering, valued against the medical record
- Scarring and disfigurement, valued separately where permanent
- The cost of losing the transport you relied on, which for many bus passengers in this city is the difference between keeping a job and not
Which Court Will Hear My Los Angeles Case?
The court covering the place where the collision happened, not the one nearest the depot or your home.
Los Angeles County handles this differently from most of California, and it is set out in a standing order of the court. General Order 2024-GEN-003-00, filed 17 May 2024, records that since 10 October 2022 every newly filed personal injury case is filed in the judicial district where the incident arose.
The court is also retiring its Personal Injury Hub in favor of Independent Calendar courtrooms, where one judge manages the case throughout. Since 8 January 2024 personal injury cases in the Central District have been assigned to IC departments at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, and hub departments have been closing into new IC courtrooms as that proceeds, Department 30 into Department T at the Alhambra Courthouse and Department 31 into Department B at the Van Nuys Courthouse.
That does not change whether you have a claim. It changes where it is filed and who manages it, and filing in the wrong district spends time a deadline does not give back.
Where You Are Taken Matters, and in Los Angeles It Varies
Los Angeles County has fifteen designated trauma centers, and which one receives you depends on where the incident happened rather than on where you live.
Verified against the California EMS Authority’s designated and ACS-verified trauma center list, the Level I centers in and around the city are Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles General Medical Center, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for children. Level II centers including California Hospital Medical Center, Northridge, Providence Holy Cross, St. Francis and Huntington Memorial cover the rest of the county.
Why that belongs in a legal claim rather than a medical one. The records that prove the injury sit with whichever facility received you, and across a county this size that is frequently not the hospital nearest home. A serious injury also generates records at more than one facility as somebody is transferred, and gathering all of them rather than the first set to arrive is a large part of what an early demand gets wrong.
Can You Sue a Bus Driver, or the Bus Company, After a Los Angeles Crash?
Both, usually, and in Los Angeles the more important question is whether the operator is a public body, because that decides your deadline rather than your rights.
Metro, the LACMTA, is a public entity. So are municipal operators and school district transport. A claim arising from one of them has to be presented in writing within six months under Government Code 911.2 before a lawsuit is possible at all, rather than the ordinary two years. Private operators, charter coaches, shuttles, tour buses and employer transport, run on the ordinary two-year period.
Working out which one you were on is therefore the first job, and it is not always obvious from the vehicle. The livery on the side is not a reliable guide to who holds the operating contract.
A bus carries a higher duty than an ordinary driver. A common carrier owes its passengers the utmost care and diligence rather than merely reasonable care, which is a materially better standard for an injured passenger than the one applying between two motorists.
Deadlines to File a Los Angeles Bus Accident Claim
Six months to present a written claim where the operator is a public entity, under Government Code 911.2. This is the ordinary case for a Metro or LADOT bus, and it is the single most common way a bus claim is lost.
Up to a year by application if six months was missed. Government Code 911.4 allows a written application for leave to present a late claim, and Government Code 911.6 says the entity shall grant it on grounds including that the injured person was physically or mentally incapacitated.
Two further grounds matter here and are easy to miss, because they are the ones most people actually fall under. Government Code 911.6(b) also requires the application to be granted where the injured person was a minor for any part of the six months, or was physically or mentally incapacitated for any part of it, provided the application is made within six months of them turning eighteen or of the incapacity ending, or a year after the claim accrued, whichever comes first.
Two years where the operator is private, under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1.
Injured children. Code of Civil Procedure 352 pauses the ordinary period while an injured person is under 18. The government claim rule is not paused in the same way, which matters on a school route.
Is it already past six months?
A late claim can still be allowed, including where the injured person was incapacitated. Do not decide it is over without asking.
What to Do After a Bus Accident in Los Angeles
Photograph the bus number and the route number, which is how the operator gets identified later when nobody remembers which agency it was.
Note the time and the direction, because that plus the route pins the specific vehicle and its driver.
Report it to the driver or the operator before you get off if you can, and ask for the incident number.
Look for the cameras. Buses carry several, inside and out, and that footage is the best evidence in the case. It is also on a retention cycle, so a request has to go in early rather than eventually.
Get the details of other passengers. They scatter at the next stop and are gone.
Get examined the same day, and say you were on a bus.
What does it cost, and what comes out of a settlement? Nothing up front. The fee is a percentage of the recovery under a written fee agreement, and there is no fee if there is no recovery. Out of a settlement come the fee, the case costs advanced, and any medical liens, which is why the headline figure and the amount received are different numbers. The full breakdown is in how a California bus claim works.
Why Los Angeles Bus Riders Choose Culver Legal
We come to you. Which on this page is more than a line: if the bus was how you got around, getting to a law office is exactly the problem.
Our team speaks Spanish, Farsi, Filipino, Hindi, Mandarin and Korean.
Nothing up front. Contingency, costs advanced by the firm, no fee unless we win. Culver Legal was founded in 2020, has recovered $200 Million and counting, and answers the phone 24 hours a day.
Los Angeles Bus Accident FAQs
I am undocumented. Can I still bring a claim without putting myself at risk?
Yes, and the protection is stronger than most people expect. Under Evidence Code 351.2, added by AB 2159, evidence of a person’s immigration status is not admissible in a civil action for personal injury or wrongful death, and discovery into it is not permitted either. So it cannot be raised at trial and it cannot be asked about beforehand. It is not a question we ask you, and it is not a question the other side gets to ask.
The bus did not crash. The driver just braked hard and I was thrown. Is that a claim?
It can be. A carrier of persons for reward owes the utmost care and diligence for safe carriage under Civil Code 2100, and that duty covers how a bus is driven with people standing in it, not only whether it collided with something. No collision does not mean no claim.
Nobody took my details and I got off at my stop. Have I lost it?
Not necessarily, but move quickly. The route, the time and the direction are usually enough to identify the vehicle, and buses carry cameras. The reason to act now is that footage is retained on a cycle rather than kept indefinitely, and on a public operator you may also be inside a six-month window.
It was a Metro bus. Am I really able to sue a government agency?
Yes, through a process rather than straight to court. Metro was created by statute as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, so it is a public entity and a written claim must be presented within six months under Government Code 911.2 before a lawsuit is possible. That is a deadline rather than a barrier.
Contact a Culver Legal Los Angeles Bus Accident Lawyer
If you were hurt on a bus, or by one, anywhere in Los Angeles, call (310) 600-7881 at any hour. The review costs nothing, and if the operator was public the six-month clock started the day you were hurt.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Culver Legal, LLP is a California law firm. The information on this page is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.
